


Notes: #25

by Ignisentis



Series: 32 Ways To Say I Love You [25]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artist Steve, Cute boyfriends are cute, I mean it this time, M/M, This one is fluffy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignisentis/pseuds/Ignisentis
Summary: Bucky leaves Steve silly jokes as love notes, and Steve illustrates them as love notes back.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: 32 Ways To Say I Love You [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602352
Comments: 35
Kudos: 164





	Notes: #25

**Author's Note:**

> Two fics today for the price of one! This one is really soft and fluffy and sweet, so watch yourselves. ;)
> 
> Come find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Ardeospina) if you're so inclined.

The first time it happens, Bucky thinks it’s a fluke. Steve gets up earlier than he does almost every single morning to go running, so he often goes to bed earlier than Bucky, too. Not every night, but enough. So the first time Bucky comes to bed and Steve is sleeping on Bucky’s side of the bed, Bucky just frowns and figures Steve rolled over trying to find him to cuddle with or something.

The second time it happens, Bucky wants his own pillow, so he tries to pull it out from under Steve’s head without waking him up. He fails. Steve snorts awake, smiles at Bucky, and scoots over to his own side of the bed. Bucky frowns as he’s getting into bed, slightly confused, but oh.  _ Ohhhh, _ the bed is warm where Steve was laying, and it feels incredible to curl up on a sleep-warm bed.

The third time it happens, Steve wakes up as Bucky approaches their bed and scoots back over to his own side. That’s when Bucky realizes Steve is doing this on purpose. He’s falling asleep on Bucky’s side of the bed so that when Bucky’s ready to sleep, it will be all warm for him already.

Which is the  _ cutest goddamn thing, _ holy shit. Bucky feels all bubbly just thinking about Steve caring so much that he’s willing to scoot onto his cold side of the bed halfway through the night just to make Bucky happier.

A simple thank you isn’t going to be enough to express just how goddamn adorable Steve’s being, so Bucky starts thinking about something he can do for Steve to show his appreciation. He comes up with the perfect thing a week later.

~~~

Steve kisses Bucky goodnight and heads for their bedroom, changing into sleep pants and going through his nightly routine. Natasha had finally convinced him to moisturize his face, even though he doesn’t really  _ need _ to because of the serum, but he had to admit his skin did feel better.

He pauses when he gets to their bed and notices the folded-up note on Bucky’s pillow. Aww, Bucky must have left it for him. He’s smiling as he opens the note and sees Bucky’s stiff handwriting.

“Q: How do the planets hold up their pants?

“A: An asteroid belt.”

Steve snorts and sets the note on the nightstand, thinking about planets and pants and belts as he falls asleep.

There’s another note the next night.

“Q: How does an eel get its power?”

Steve thinks about it, trying to match up some sort of electrical answer because of the word power and the fact that electric eels are a real thing, but he can’t come up with a good answer. Or, well, a silly answer, at least.

“A: An eel-ection.”

Steve frowns. An eel...oh. An ELECTION! Oh, that’s a nice bait and switch, Steve likes that one.

He falls asleep thinking about eels in suits giving campaign victory speeches.

  
  


There’s another note the next night, too, and Steve smiles as something settles in his chest. He wasn’t sure at first, but now he knows: Bucky noticed what he’s been doing with the bed-warming thing, and this is his way of saying thank you.  _ Fuck, _ that’s cute. He doesn’t often stop and think about how incredible it is that they’ve been given this chance, that they’re together again decades in the future when both of them had been presumed dead, because if he does, he usually ends up panicking a little, overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.

But every once in a while, usually when Bucky is being intolerably adorable, he lets himself think about just how fucking lucky they are.

He smiles and reads the note.

“Q: What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire?

“A: Frostbite!”

Steve snorts and groans, but he falls asleep thinking about a vampire with icicle fangs who turns into a penguin instead of a bat.

~~~

Bucky yawns, scratching at his stomach as he shuffles his way to the kitchen. He can smell freshly brewed coffee waiting for him, just like always, courtesy of Steve. He grabs the mug Steve left out on the counter for him, pausing when a piece of paper flutters down onto the counter. Huh. It must have been leaning up against his mug. 

Bucky picks it up, smiling when he opens it: it’s the first note he left Steve, the one with the joke about the planets and asteroid belts. Underneath it, Steve’s drawn a cute, happy planet wearing a pair of pants, a thin line of asteroids wrapped around its waist. Oh, fuck, that is so goddamn  _ cute!! _

The next morning there’s another note leaning against his mug. This one is the eel joke, and Steve has drawn an eel in a suit behind a podium. There are balloons and confetti falling from the ceiling, a bunch of other eels in the audience clapping their tails together like they’re applauding. It is ridiculous and wonderful and so wholly  _ Steve _ that it makes Bucky’s teeth ache.

The next morning, it’s the one about the snowman and the vampire. Steve’s drawn a vampire that looks mean and fierce, icicles in its mouth, and shards of ice dripping off its body like knives. Then it transforms into the cutest, tiniest penguin and slides away on its belly. 

God, Steve is so creative sometimes it takes Bucky’s breath away. These drawings are too good to just sit in a drawer somewhere as Bucky collects them. It takes him a few days to figure out what he wants to do with them, but when he does, he waits until Steve is out on a mission to ask Jarvis for help.

“Hey, Jarvis?”

“ _ Yes, Sergeant Barnes? _ ”

“Steve’s been doing these drawings, and I want to collect them into a book somehow. Do you think if I hold them up to one of your cameras that you could scan them, then format them into some sort of book that I can get printed so I can give it to Steve? They’re little drawings of jokes I leave on notes for him at night.”

“ _ Of course, sir, that would be no problem. Why don’t you show me what you have and I’ll create a mockup for you. _ ”

“Thanks, Jarvis.”

Bucky grabs all the illustrations he has so far and finds a camera to hold them up to. Jarvis takes the data he needs and formats the text and pictures into a really great, professional-looking art book. Each picture and its corresponding joke take up half a page, and since it hasn’t even been two weeks yet, the book is pretty thin.

Jarvis tells Bucky he can wait until there are more photos if he wants, and he can add new ones at any time. So Bucky does that; he leaves notes with silly jokes and collects the drawings Steve makes for him in return, and Jarvis puts them into the book.

He and Steve never talk about the notes, either. They hadn’t when it started, and then Bucky always felt like if he did that it would ruin the magic somehow or make Steve not want to do it, and he didn’t want to ruin it, so he just kept writing his notes and Steve kept illustrating them, neither of them acknowledging it.

Until the day Bucky deems the book full enough. There are 150 drawings in the book now, and Steve’s birthday is coming up — not the July 4th date they’d changed it to after he became Captain America, but the real one that only he and Steve know and celebrate. Bucky’s going to bake him a cake and give him the book as a present.

~~~

Bucky bakes him the most delicious birthday cake for his secret birthday, and just when Steve thinks the evening can’t get better than tasting frosting on Bucky’s lips, Bucky hands him an artfully wrapped present.

“Thank you, Buck,” Steve smiles. 

“Don’t thank me until you’ve opened it,” Bucky teases.

Steve proceeds to do just that, carefully peeling off the tape and unfolding the paper so he doesn’t tear it, which always makes Bucky, who just rips into a present with abandon, huff and roll his eyes fondly.

There’s a book inside, a large book a little bigger than a standard piece of paper. The cover has a tasteful picture of a folded, blank notecard under the title, which is “Notes, Vol 1.” There isn’t an author listed on the front or the side. What  _ is _ this?

Steve looks over to Bucky, who just laughs at him and says, “just look inside, Steve.”

So he does. He inhales sharply when he sees the first picture, blown up but still as sharp as it had been on the little piece of paper Bucky’d left for him. The joke is printed out, too, in Bucky’s stiff handwriting that Steve loves. Steve flips through the pages and finds every note he and Bucky have exchanged since they started doing it months ago, except for this past week. That must have been when the book was printed and shipped. At the end, there’s a four-page spread with smaller scans of the notes themselves, put together into a full-page collage. 

It’s an absolutely stunning book, the paper thick and glossy, the printing sharp, and Steve has to swallow hard against the ache in his throat. They’d be good tears, happy tears, but he doesn’t want to get any on this incredible gift Bucky made just for him.

“Thank you, Bucky,” Steve says to him after he clears his throat. “This is...it’s perfect.”

Bucky beams at him. “You’re welcome. Those pictures are so wonderful they deserve to be collected and treasured.”

Steve trails his fingertips reverently across the cover. “Volume 1, huh?”

Bucky shrugs, still smiling. “I’m optimistic.”

Steve leans over and kisses him, slow and sweet. “We can start on Volume 2 tomorrow.”

Bucky’s smile widens before he leans back in for another kiss.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Two of the jokes in this fic come from my kids, who are 8 and 6, and came downstairs for dinner one evening and announced that they had written their own jokes. My partner and I waited patiently and listened, and boy were we surprised when the jokes made sense and were really cute! 
> 
> So a big thank you to my kids for the asteroid belt joke and the Eel-ection joke, which I happen to love dearly. Are they the first people to make these jokes? No, but they came up with them by themselves, so now they're extra special.
> 
> An eel-ection! Honestly!!! Picture a 6-year-old saying EEL-ection and then giggling, and try not to smile yourself. It's impossible!


End file.
